Seminars, meetings galore and exciting news from the University of Toronto Magazine, Autumn 2021

Since I wrote to you last, I saw clients, had some fun, decided to eat healthy and of course more webinars. I love my work. I love helping people for a living. I have done that for most of my working life and it is something I can do, while I have a well oiled functioning brain. I have been thinking of writing some case studies. I would be picking cases that can help others. I want to explore that more. Now meetings…..During my second career, I once asked a professor if he was going to attend a meeting I had to go to. He replied that everyone has an opinion and was not going. That stuck to my grey cells and I experienced that feeling in most of all the meetings I attended for the week. I also attended a webinar Saturday with a panel from out West. I cringed at what I heard regarding COVID. I won’t go into details or tell on the organization but suffice to say I am so glad that I have the resources I have from the two universities, I attended right here at home. I attended others but there is a gag order not to tell, so sorry, cannot spell the beans even though I don't think there is anything secretive. If people cannot be up to date now and able to separate science from fiction, then there is a problem Houston. On the news this morning a physician from Saskatchewan who had been transferred to an Ontario ICU died from COVID. I felt sad hearing that. Next topic: I have decided to eat healthy. Since COVID, I have indulged in all the foods I wanted without a care. So, now I have decided to eat healthier. That doesn’t mean cutting off any foods, but it does mean increasing fruits and vegetables etc….and choosing more selectively my bad foods for the day or week. I had no idea I was eating so much sodium, especially because I don’t use salt often. I have begun to read the contents and the amount of salt in foods which is crazy. I even picked up a small apple pie and put it back, because 50% was nasty stuff. When did this all happen? Because I am a vegetarian, I usually buy veggie burgers, veggie hot dogs etc…..Did you ever read the contents of that suff? By the time I reached the cashier, I asked if she knew how hard it was to eat health food? She nodded. “You can’t find anything.” I exclaimed. She nodded knowingly. I wondered why they don’t have an identity tag for health foods so you don’t have to read all the data. Oh, wait a minute, they did and it is no longer available. I guess there was a fee for having it and there was still nasty stuff in the contents. Fortunately in undergrad, I had to study this in one or two of my courses and it is a good thing I was paying attention. I remember insinuating to my professor that pizza must be healthy because it has so many vegetables. She looked at me, shook her head and said, cholesterol. I was hoping that had changed and thought I would go to the counter where they sold slices of pizza. “Anything healthy here? Low in fat? The young teen, looked at me and shook her head, knowing this was one customer she wasn’t going to get to serve. So, I went to the pastry counter and bought a tiny dessert which listed 200 calories for one. It didn’t display what was in it, but what the heck. Like I said I am not giving up everything. I am just not eating everything. I have never noticed a change in my scale but then I hadn’t been to the gym so my muscles must have evaporated and thus, since muscle is heavier, I thought I was good. Nadda, one test revealed, and so I am on a slow mission to returning to my old self. I also miss the gym and haven’t returned since COVID. Yesterday I looked longingly at a piece of equipment. I would never have the space for that in my home. Maybe it was the right time to return to the gym. I can’t wear a mask while working out. This morning the news said we were entering a fourth wave. Ok, so no gym, but really, big businesses start providing us with health food. I need to eat. On a more positive note, I was reading an article from my old University of Toronto, magazine fall edition. Page 1 began with “Second Skin.” There is a surgical tool being developed from researchers at the University of Toronto and Sunnybrook Health Sciences. The device is a kind of 3D printer for skin which will be used to lay a sheet of biomaterial over a patient’s burn site. Biological ink (contains a kind of stem cell) will then be dispensed to accelerate the healing process. The article continues that with big burns you don’t have enough healthy skin available which can lead to death of the patient. Prof Guenther envisions surgeons being able to use the device in operating rooms in the next few years. Reading that piece made my day. Now that is progress! How was your week?